CryoClim: Monitoring Climate Change in the Cryosphere

Air temperature measurements show a clear trend of global climate warming during the last decades. The Arctic temperature has increased at almost twice the rate compared to that of the rest of the world over the same period. It has been internationally agreed that climate monitoring is urgently needed in order to quantify and better understand the climatic changes taking place. The vision of the CryoClim initiative is to develop new operational services for long-term systematic climate monitoring of the cryosphere. The project includes plans for development of services for sea ice and snow products of global coverage and glacier products covering Norway. The project is also aiming for an expansion where the glaciers in the Alps and the Greenland ice cap are included. The development of the CryoClim service has been funded and facilitated by the Norwegian Space Centre and the European Space Agency. The service is a contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and the Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) following the monitoring principles recommended by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS).